This one just got better and better as I started to look into it. After checking the Andrew Lloyd WebberPhantom of the Opera wikipedia page for some possible details it seems there are other examples. As I sit here and listen to Pink Floyd “Echoes” (1971) for the next 23 minutes (it’s a really long song) I am going to check out these others and post them below.

In 1987, the heirs of Giacomo Puccini charged in a lawsuit that the climactic phrase in “Music of the Night” closely resembled a similar phrase in the sequence “Quello che tacete” from Puccini’s opera Girl of the Golden West. The litigation was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

In 1990, a Baltimore songwriter named Ray Repp filed a lawsuit alleging that the title song from Phantom was based on a song that he wrote in 1978 called “Till You.” After eight years of litigation — including an unsuccessful countersuit by Lloyd Webber claiming that “Till You” was itself a plagiarism of “Close Every Door” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — the jury found in Lloyd Webber’s favor.

Roger Waters [of Pink Floyd] has repeatedly claimed in interviews that the signature descending/ascending half-tone chord progression from Phantom’s title song was plagiarised from the bass line of a track on the Pink Floyd album Meddle called “Echoes.” He has never taken any legal action (“Life’s too long to bother with suing Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber”), but he did add an insulting reference to Lloyd Webber in his song “It’s a Miracle”: “We cower in our shelters/With our hands over our ears/Lloyd Webber’s awful stuff/Runs for years and years and years/An earthquake hits the theatre/But the operetta lingers/Then the piano lid comes down/And breaks his fucking fingers. /It’s a miracle!”. source: wikipedia

I also started to hum Weezer‘s Blue Album b-side “Susanne”. Might be a stretch but I’m adding it anyway.

“Phantom of the Opera Theme” Intro:

Pink Floyd - "Echoes" (1971)

Andrew Lloyd Webber - "Phantom of the Opera (Intro)" (1986)

“Phantom of the Opera Theme” Verse:

Ray Repp - "Till You" (1978)

Andrew Lloyd Webber - "Phantom of the Opera (verse)" (1986)

Weezer - "Susanne" (1994)

Train - "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" (2012)

I am not sure what Webber is talking about above but here is part of the Technicolor song:

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - "Close Every Door for Me" (1982)

so a song released in 1978 is plagiarized from a song released 4 years later in 1982?

Really?

in 1990, a Baltimore songwriter named Ray Repp filed a lawsuit alleging that the title song from Phantom was based on a song that he wrote in 1978 called “Till You.” After eight years of litigation — including an unsuccessful countersuit by Lloyd Webber claiming that “Till You” was itself a plagiarism of “Close Every Door” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — the jury found in Lloyd Webber’s favor.

Songs on albums reprising earlier melodies happens a lot, it’s more in the tradition of opera or indeed musicals like Andrew Lloyd Webber (recycling Don’t Cry For Me Argentina endlessly in Evita) but James Blunt did it with You’re Beautiful.

thewaitisogre – I believe “Run the World”, and the Nicola Roberts track (which Madonna’s Gimme All Your Luvin’ famously sounded like with the cheerleader chants) all were authorized samples or had Diplo from the original on production.

Don’t forget Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City’s “Good Time” being another total Cali Gurls wannabe – not produced by Dr. Luke apparently despite many assuming so, but some of his associates.

The Phantom of the Opera also sounds like One Day I’ll Fly Away by Randy Crawford (1980), known for its appearance in Moulin Rouge, but it’s a smaller segment than the others, just being the minor arpeggio second inversion and resolution.